On red-light cameras and 'special' drivers

Congrats to the mayor of Poway

NORTH COUNTY  A whiff of sanity in local government blew through Wednesday: Poway joined the ranks of cities turning off its red-light cameras (actually, it suspended their use for six months as a test, but, hey, that’s a start).

Congratulations, Mayor Don Higginson, for a job well done.

Perhaps Encinitas will dump their oppressive red-light cameras, too. Mayor Teresa Barth has said the city will debate the issue in the coming weeks.

Now if only Escondido, Vista and Oceanside would follow suit. San Marcos and Carlsbad, thankfully, never joined the we-are-big-brother, easy-money movement in the first place.

There is enough anxiety on the roadways without worrying about someone rear-ending your car while you try to avoid a $500 traffic ticket by slamming on the brakes.

Of course, North County’s proliferation of red lights is vexing anyway.

Recently, I was on the way to the gym at 4:50 a.m., my car the sole vehicle on Rancho Santa Fe in Carlsbad, when the light in front of me turned red and I coasted to a stop. There was no cross traffic, no pedestrian to be seen, no bicyclist. Nobody.

I can assume (in paranoid fashion) that someone was getting a kick — via some spy camera computer traffic system — by tripping that green light red.

I sat shivering a little from the cold and muttering bad things until the green cycled back up.

A friend of mine, who is a missionary, gave a terrific sermon the other day noting that it is his practice to offer up prayers at such times.

Don says that instead of adding to the total amount of bad energy in the world by being irritated by the red light, he adds to the positive side by offering a prayer of intercession (you know, asking God to help someone).

This strikes me a good idea, and if I can keep enough attention to practice this, I would ask for divine intervention for every city traffic engineer in North County and, of course, seek forgiveness for every harsh thought I’ve harbored at every red light for the last 30 or 40 years — that’s some considerable amount of baggage to unload.

Another friend, Richard, has a similar technique for coping with our clogged freeways and Attila the Hun drivers.

Richard calls them “special” drivers. They get to engage in road rudeness because they are “special,” and he has granted them permission to be so.

These are the guys who crawl up your bumper, regardless of what lane you’re in, and ride it as though there were someplace really important for them to be. They zoom around you, cutting back in front with just an eyelash of space between.

Those special drivers are particularly frustrating in areas like the eastbound lanes of the 78 at Barham Drive at 3 p.m. weekdays — which most of us already know is the county’s worst freeway bottleneck.

It’s somewhat enlightening to watch the “special” drivers slice along in the fast lane until just before the southbound Interstate 15 ramp, whereupon they nose into the slightest crack in the wall of cars backing up all the way to Nordahl.